Over at National Review Online, John Derbyshire reprints some of the reaction to his strange column about his visit to New Orleans, which I wrote about yesterday in a blog entry called "The Ugly American, abroad in his own land."
Anyway, he quotes one of his correspondents who agreed with him:
Yes, there are charms to the city; the Garden District, the music, the fabulous restaurants, the antique shops in the French Quarter. But those charms are combined to a small square bordered by Canal Street, Rampart Street, the Mississippi River and the Garden District.
I'm still trying to figure out how those four landmarks make a square, but at least this fellow found more to do in New Orleans than Derbyshire did. Unfortunately, he goes on to say:
Basically, Katrina should be viewed as a Godsend. An excuse to save the few historic and chaming places in the city and bulldoze the rest.
Beside the humanitarian aspect of all of this, it seems a little strange that a National Review reader would be advocating the seizure and bulldozure (if you will) of private property because it was, you know, ugly. That Uncle Sam Knows Better Than You Do attitude kinda strikes me as the worst sort of big-government socialism.
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